


what a lovely way to burn

by orphan_account



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, M/M, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2018-02-20 20:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2441591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Just so you know,” Ronan said once settled comfortably, “as much as I respect you as people, no threesomes.”</p>
<p>Alternately titled “Welcome to the Insomniac Club”. Or something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what a lovely way to burn

**Author's Note:**

> the raven boys are following me around and forcing me to write about them, even though i should be working on my bondlock series. forgive me.
> 
> every time someone comments, adam gets more tea, and believe me, the poor boy deserves it.

Ronan opened his door at two in the morning to find Gansey in the middle of his miniature Henrietta, which was normal, and Adam drinking tea on Gansey’s bed, which was not.

“No, that one’s a river,” Adam was saying to Gansey, who was not actually working on his town but studying a map. “And the one after that is-“

“Is someone wearing perfume?” Ronan broke in. “Parrish, is that you?”

Adam, sitting cross-legged against the bed frame, glowered at him over his mug of strong apricot vanilla tea.

“Ronan, sit down,” Gansey said absently. Ronan rightly took that to mean as “beside Adam” and obeyed, sprawling out on the side of the bed that the other boy was not occupying. Adam glowered harder when Ronan’s feet landed in his lap but didn’t protest.

“Just so you know,” Ronan said once settled comfortably, “as much as I respect you as people, no threesomes.”

Adam choked on what might have been a laugh, wiping his mouth of nonexistent tea with the inside of his wrist. It was a strange parallel to the way Ronan might have chewed at the leather bands looped around his own wrists. “Respect?” he asked wryly, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Gansey, unimpressed or perhaps just not listening, returned to scribbling on his map. Already, along with the curving line of red marker, there were little notes scribbled around it- bits of pop songs and comments on energy and intention, thickest around Cabeswater. It was, like everything Glendower-related that Gansey made, art in its own right, a scholarly masterpiece.

Ronan and Adam were mostly silent, just watching their friend through his fervor, the latter boy occasionally making remarks about the ley line or Cabeswater. At moments like this, it was easy to remember how _different_ Adam was now. Ronan’s feet were in his lap, and yet he was so far away from all of them.

“For God’s sake,” Gansey said finally, after two minutes, or maybe two hours. His legs cramped a little when he moved them. “What time is it?” He frowned up at the clock as if it had personally offended him before looking over at his friends. “You don’t have to-“ he began, but there was no one to hear him.

Ronan was somehow asleep, his head knocking against one of the bed posts and one finger unconsciously hooked in the sleeve of Adam’s threadbare shirt- Adam, who was curled in on himself at the foot of the bed, the empty mug tucked securely between the edge of the mattress and the frame.

“Well, I’m not sleeping _there_ tonight,” Gansey observed with no particular inflection. He didn’t mind letting them sleep, especially as he knew their cases of insomnia were just as bad as his. He glanced at the clock again and sighed softly. “Or, rather, this morning.”

. . .

Blue Sargent, dressed in old but clean crocheted leggings and one of Maura’s mustard-colored pea coats, rung the doorbell for the third time. There was not so much as a rustle from inside.

“Oh, come on,” she muttered. It was _cold_ this morning- her breath came in quiet smoky puffs, and the grass crackled with frost- and yet she had been standing here, outside Monmouth, for five minutes. She was just contemplating going to Adam’s and seeing if anyone was there when she remembered the way Noah had worked the door open.

After a long, fairly noisy tussle with the doorknob, Blue finally jerked it in the right direction- how, she would never know- and the door opened, complaining every inch of the way. She was sure that, any moment, Ronan would jump out at her, possibly with a shovel, thinking she was a burglar, but no- it was completely still. The _click_ of the door shutting and the soft padding of her rubber-soled boots against the wood floor were impossibly loud in the eight o’clock silence.

It felt a little wrong, tiptoeing through this place that she was only comfortable in when the boys were here too, and so Blue was relieved when she noticed Gansey’s bent head among Henrietta’s miniature buildings. He was asleep, she saw at once, head tilted back against a leg of the desk.

(She also realized that she had never really seen him sleep. Maybe it was his face, relaxed and decidedly unGansey-like, but something about it made her heart do that complicated tugging thing, which was now familiar. She did her best to ignore it.)

Turning away quickly, she realized why Gansey was on the floor and not his bed. Ronan was spread out, taking up most of the space, and Adam was tucked into a ball near his legs, face turned into the sheets. It was not a small bed, but by no means large enough for two tall boys to sleep comfortably- they were closer than Blue had ever seen them willingly be.

She was, understandably, taken aback.

“Weird, isn’t it?” Noah said, suddenly at Blue’s shoulder; she could _feel_ him there, cold and slightly clammy, but at the same time lingeringly sweet.

She just nodded.


End file.
